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Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Judge Tosses Westfield Open Door Lawsuit

As expected, Hamilton Circuit Court Judge Paul Felix tossed a lawsuit filed by Westfield mayoral candidate Jeff Harpe challenging the city's $53 million plan to allow the politically-connected Holladay Properties firm to develop an indoor soccer arena based on the council's violation of the state's Open Door Law in approving the one-sided deal. Judge Felix's ruling was based on Harpe's failure to bring the lawsuit within the 30-day time period required by law. Now maybe his attorney will actually file a lawsuit that will stand up in court--like the fact that Mayor Andy Cook bypassed the mandatory RFP requirement set forth in state law in handpicking Holladay Properties to build the indoor soccer arena.

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Any meeting with more than one councilor has to be open to the public (few exceptions) and public meetings have to be advertised. Period. Committee meetings are no exception whether decisions are made or not. Clearly councillors discussed this before voting.

Mr. Welsh, if the city didn't issue a request for proposals, what procurement process did they use? this got tossed on a poorly defined technicality... Still, Shame on them.

If the mayor broke the law on sole sourcing, why doesn't the state attorney general seek legal action? Why is it the burden of the individual taxpayer to file something if brought to the state of Indiana?

Mayor Crook, err Cook, has created such a interdependent web of sheep on the council, economic development commission, planning commission, etc.. If the citizens of Westfield re-select him and his cronies, they deserve the higher taxes and cutbacks in municipal services that will be required in a few years to pay the debt service on the sports fantasy playgrounds he has built.

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